Out of Step
by Hyoxjnn
Summary: One-Shot: Prelude to the new Ace Attorney game, where the 'Stepladder vs. Ladder' argument will finally be laid to rest... Not really. [Twelve Shots of Summer]


**Week 7 of the **_**Twelve Shots of Summer**_  
**Mission Mail: Compose a story on the theme of 'Crime And Punishment', fail and face the Great Judgini's wrath.**  
**And his gavel.**  
**On your head.**  
**Three times.**  
**Ka-Bang.**

* * *

**So.**

**This **_**should**_** have been uploaded last week, but I... Mixed stuff up...**  
**Hm.**  
**Sorry XD**

**After this, I recommend you read **_**Inverse**_**, which is the proper story for Week 8 :P**  
**And then!**  
**Read the other works on the **_**Twelve Shots of Summer**_** community!**  
**It's beautiful, is what it is :3**

* * *

**Out of Step**

"_OBJECTION!_"  
... Lavender...

"_OBJECTION!_"  
... Blue...

"I objected _first!_"  
... Topknot...

"Well, guess what? I objected to your objection!"  
... Spikes...

"And _I_ objected to your objection of my objection!"  
... A heated battle between two former friends...

"Maya, you can't object to something that hasn't _happened_ yet!"  
_Phoenix Wright - The Defense_

"But it _has_ happened, Nick! Are you even _listening_ to yourself?!"  
_Maya Fey - The Prosecution._

""_JUDGE'S RULING!_"" The two snapped, simultaneously.  
More of a demand, than a question.

"Ummm... I..." Naturally, she didn't know how to respond.  
'She' being Maya Fey's cousin, Pearl Fey, "M-Mr Nick... I don't know what to do..."  
_Pearl Fey - The Judge._

_How did it come to this...?_  
Would the defendant, Phoenix Wright, be found Guilty...?  
Or Innocent...?  
Only time would tell...

* * *

**Turnabout Terms**

* * *

"Nick, it's done!" Maya beamed, with a final swipe of her paintbrush.

"O-Oh, really...?" Phoenix shuffled uncomfortably in his chair, running several escape plans through his head, "well then... Let's have a look...!"

"Wow, Mystic Maya! It's beautiful!" Pearl laughed clapping her hands in delight.  
Maya Fey had put forward the motion that the Wright and Co. Law Offices weren't 'stylish' enough, and decided that they should 'spruce the place up'; Pearl obviously agreed, ("it's _romantic_,") and Phoenix, unaware of the horror that would follow, allowed Maya to carry out 'Plan We-Can-Fix-It'.  
The next day, it became apparent that the 'plan' consisted of Maya slapping unframed illustrations all over the place.

_What have I done...?!_  
Phoenix had dropped a stack of bills he was carrying as he entered the office; crudely-drawn pictures of Pearl and Maya littered the walls, along with other people, such as Miles Edgeworth, and Dick Gumshoe. Despite Maya's efforts chasing away potential clients, Phoenix couldn't bring himself to say anything, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

"Ah, Mr Nick! Doesn't everything looks so much more spruce-y?" Pearl delightfully skipped around, admiring each of Maya's work, carefully.

_I guess Pearls is too young to... Hm._  
Giving up on thinking of a verb to end the sentence with, Phoenix sighed, and set about retrieving his papers from the floor.

* * *

..._'Fey and Co. Offices for Those Who Can't Draw Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too' has a nice ring to it..._  
Phoenix mused to himself, sorting through some bills; a month had passed since 'Plan We-Can-Fix-It' had begun; suddenly, he heard a 'creak', and Maya walked through the door.

"Hey, Nick...!" She gasped, grinning tiredly, "I finished another one, have a look!" Breathlessly, she thrust an A4 paper into his face; it depicted Maya and Pearl together, playing in the Winding Way of Kurain Manor.  
... At least, from what he could decipher.

_... It hurts to look..._  
It was... Bad.  
Very bad.  
If it were any badder, it would currently be running the mafia _and_ yakuza, along with any and all other miscellaneous street gangs on the everywhere.  
And that's putting it nicely.  
Its level of 'bad' was equal to that of 13 twelvie posts on DeviantART; if each post was _Bad Lvl. 10_, it wasn't simply 10 multiplied by 13 to get to _Bad Lvl. 130_, it was 10 to the _power of_ 13, to reach _Bad Lvl. 10,000,000,000,000_. With a Bad Level of ten trillion, it had the potential to be weaponized by a group of evil, tea-drinking masterminds, and subsequently locked _away_ by said masterminds after creation, realising that such a weapon should only be used never; the only safe way to represent such a weapon's effect would be through video games, RPGs in which the ultimate weapon would be '_The Sigil of Fey_', with '_Infinity+9001 ATK_', and a description of '_Swaghetti Yolonaise_'; even then, multiple gamers would return the game, with complaints of epilepsy-induced seizures, PTSD, and rabies.  
... _Rabies_.  
From an _in-game image_.  
Of a _drawing_.  
Bad.

"Nick, I know that there are a lot of drawings around the offices now..." Maya began excitedly.

"... Yes, Maya... Yes there are..." Phoenix's lowered head concealed the tears running down his face.

"... And _because_ there are so many, you might not have noticed..." She continued, oblivious to Phoenix's grief.

"Oh, I _know_ I haven't noticed..." He didn't know what he 'hadn't noticed', but he seeing as he made the extreme effort to deny the drawings' existences on a daily basis, he could be fairly certain that he had no idea what she was about to say.

"... That I still haven't done a drawing of you!"  
... He was dead wrong.  
Actually, Phoenix's only solace in the past three weeks _was_ the very fact that a drawing of him had yet to exist.

_I don't like where this is going..._  
Stubbornly clinging to the last shred of hope in his heart, Phoenix forced a smile, "o-oh yeah, you're right. Hahaha..."

"So..." Maya reached behind her back, and whipped out a fresh sheet of paper, "I've been saving this sheet 'specially for you, Nick! It's your turn!" She grinned.

_... Why._

* * *

"So, do you like it?" Maya jumped up and down, unable to contain her excitement.

"Ah... Well, it's..." Phoenix's eyes burned; the horrid mix of charcoal, lead, and crayon stabbed at his fingers like acid, and the smell assaulted his mind like the stench of a dead body never could. He thought he saw Maya's mouth move, but he could barely hear her as it was; Phoenix had sat perfectly still for 4 hours, allowing Maya to sketch a portrait of him, and during that time, his sanity had slowly been eroded by the ceaseless sound of doom on paper.

"Go on Mr Nick... _Tell her how much you like it._"  
It might have been Phoenix's deranged mind playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn that Pearl had thrown him an eerily creepy smile.

"It's... It's unbelievably original," Phoenix Wright was an expert at bluffing, but never before had he felt so cornered, "it's a show of personality like I've never seen; your style goes... _Far_ beyond human imagination, truly," with a bit of luck, he thought, he may just get out of this alive.  
Mentally scathed... Wounded... Injured...  
But alive.  
In the past, Phoenix had not dared to keep his eyes on one of Maya's works for more than a few seconds, but here and now, he had no choice; being forced to stare at... _It_. Being forced to _touch_ it, to _HOLD_ it for so long... It was already starting to scar him, psychologically.

"Aw, well thanks Nick," Maya gushed, "... Not that it's unexpected or anything." She added a touch of typical Maya overconfidence.

"Keep going, Mr Nick!" Pearl encouraged him.

_Must I...?_

"It's... It's superbly unique, I could never get bored looking at this, even if i wanted to. It's the kind of drawing that I can't get out of my mind, that follows me into my dreams." Phoenix was on autopilot now, giving 'complements' to Maya's portrait in a monotonous, robotic tone.  
If he had heard himself, he would have wondered, 'who's that guy...?'

"Great!" Maya, with some effort, wrenched the drawing out of Phoenix's grip.  
Rigormortis was starting to set in, "I'll send this to Mr Edgeworth, like the rest-'

"_HOLD IT!_" Phoenix slammed his hands onto his desk, his mind struggled to hold itself together.

"What's up, Nick?" Maya gave him a quizzical look, "you want me to do a better one of you?"

"_OBJECTION!_" Phoenix yelled at the top of his lungs, pointing his finger straight at Maya, "... I... Can't let you do that."

"Wh-... Why not...?"

"Maya... I don't want anyone to see that drawing. _Ever_."

"What...?!" Maya looked both hurt, and outraged, "that was out of step, Nick." Her eyes moistened.

"... It's 'out of line', Maya."

"_ARGH!_" Maya stomped at the ground in frustration, "you don't like my drawing, Nick? Well _I'm_ sick of you always being so narrow-minded! 'It's 'out of line', Maya'? You have to look _past_-"

"Maya, don't change the subject!"

"That's _it!_" She dashed out of the room, and dragged a table back in, standing behind it defiantly, "okay, Mr Hotshot-Know-It-All-Lawyer, let's see how you handle a trial without _my_ support!" She banged her fist on the table, "Pearly! You're the judge!"

"M-Me...?" Pearl, who had silently watched the entire exchange, covered her open mouth, as her eyebrows shot upward in surprise.

"_Fine!_" Phoenix stood up, fuming, behind his own desk, "what exactly are you _charging_ me of, Ms Look-At-The-Essence Spirit Medium?"

"I'm _charging_ you of being a _jerk_, Mr Stepladders-Aren't-Ladders Jerkface!" She shouted back.

"They're totally different _things_, Ms I-Can't-Distinguish-Mandarins-From-Oranges Burger-Muncher!" He responded with a childish, albeit true, retort.

"_OBJECTION!_" Maya hit the desk indignantly, alomost breaking it.

"_OBJECTION!_" Phoenix attempted to overrule her.

"I objected _first!_" She protested.

"Well, guess what? I objected to your objection!" He countered, hitting his own desk, hard.

"And _I_ objected to your objection of my objection!" The sentence escaped before she had time to think it through.

"Maya, you can't object to something that hasn't _happened_ yet!" Phoenix pointed out.

"But it _has_ happened, Nick! Are you even _listening_ to yourself?!" Maya insisted, unaware of what she had just inferred.

""_JUDGE'S RULING!_"" The two snapped, simultaneously.

"Ummm... I..." Naturally, Pearl didn't know how to respond, "M-Mr Nick... I don't know what to do..."

_... How did it come to this...?_  
Would the defendant, Phoenix Wright, be found Guilty...?  
Or Innocent...?  
Only time would tell...

_To Be Continued..._

* * *

**"Being forced to **_**touch**_** it, to **_**HOLD**_** it for so long..."**  
**'Hold it', lol XD**  
**That was actually unintentional, believe it or don't X3**

_**Inverse**_** will be up in a moment or so; if you have the time, kindly read that :D**  
**And/Or the other **_**Twelve Shots of Summer**_** works! Do it.**  
**Srsly.**  
**Nao.**  
**:P**

**P.S. Yes, Maya uses a paintbrush with charcoal, lead, and crayon.  
****Don't ask why...**

**_X DAYS_ IS UPDATING SOON WHAHAHAHAHAH, PLZ READ.**  
**(No lie.)**


End file.
